From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"LIVE for half a decade! Daily Kos Radio is on the air!"
I hear voices in the morning. They talk to me, the voices do. Yet…I'm the only person in the room. It makes me shout, "What sorcery be this, demon spawn?!!" Which makes the neighbors yell, "It's your fucking radio, you moron!"
But it's not just any radio. It's Daily Kos Radio---the blog post you can hear!---hosted by front-pager David Waldman---aka KagroX, the nationally-known Gun Fail compiler and tamer of GOP filibuster abuse.
Five years ago this week, along with beloved, mild-mannered Kossack Armando (aka "Armando"), David took to the airwaves on Sirius Radio. After their "radio play" about a "Martian invasion" caused a "nationwide panic," Sirius suggested that perhaps their talents might be more appreciated elsewhere, and "changed the locks."
But Sirius's loss was NetrootsRadio.com gain. Today "Kagro in the Morning" airs live Monday through Friday from 9-11am ET (but you can listen to the podcast anytime). For two hours David unpacks the day's big stories in politics and current events with wit, outside-the-beltway common sense, a voice on loan from James Earl Jones, and just enough incredulity at the state of things to make you wonder if he's just moments away from going Howard Beale on the world. But he says he doesn’t do it alone:
"Thanks to the many dedicated Kossacks who make up the Netroots Radio operation. They built this thing by themselves, out of chicken wire and duct tape, and were just kind enough to let us experiment with it.
Special thanks to Justice Putnam for tech assistance, Greg Dworkin who's on with me nearly every weekday morning, Scott Anderson, who puts together the podcast summary post every day and allows me to get up from the computer and have time to conduct the rest of my life each afternoon, and to our other regulars, Joan McCarter, Armando and the other featured writers, editors and community members who've been on with us, or let me read their comments and diaries, and helped make the mornings feel a little like a visit with family but still be informative radio.
And of course, all of you, who've been willing to click the "play" button and actually give over two hours, or some part of it, to the show each day! You people are crazy."
So check out the Daily Kos Radio preview post that'll show up above C&J momentarily, then lend Kagro your ears---and some coin, if you can, to keep him on the air---and join in the running dialogue on twitter at @KagroX and hashtag #KITM. Who knows? This might be the day he completely loses his mind. Or endorses Donald Trump. Pardon the redundancy.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Note: For those of you who listen to the radio through your dental fillings, Kagro in the Morning comes in through your lower left molar. Enjoy!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Left Handers' Day: 4
Days 'til the Pittston Tomato Festival in Pennsylvania: 9
Percent of Americans aged 18-30 who favor background checks on all gun purchases and stiffer penalties for people who violate existing gun laws according to a new GenForward poll: 90%
Percent of them who want a ban on rapid-fire assault-style weapons: 57%
Percent chance Iran became the first country to outright ban Pokemon Go according to PC Magazine: 100%
Amount of actual baseball action over the course of an average 3-hour MLB game according to The Week: 18 minutes
Amount of Football action the course of the average NFL game: 11 minutes
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Let's see what the fine commenters at RedState are saying about their party's nominee, Herr Drumpf:
"It is impossible to have a cogent reasoned conversation with a Trump supporter. These people are the things Holocausts are made of."
"I held my nose 8 years ago and 4 years ago but I can only hold my nose so long. Johnson is the only one not so bad that I can even taste the foul smell. The GOP went to the Great Elephant Graveyard in Cleveland."
"Our best chance is to make sure NOBODY gets 270, and at the same time we do all we can to tie this boat-anchor around Drumpf's neck so the House *has* to throw him over the side."
"Every day that passes, Trump's core is both further distilled and brought more into the light. When we look back on this, we will see him as the persistent cough that caused the trip to the doctor that led to a double pneumonia diagnosis."
All together now: 1…2…3…Whoa.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Test your waterworks…
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CHEERS to another day, another skirmish in the Great GOP Civil War of Aught Fifteen. Here's a handy summary of what happened in Republican Land yesterday, which was supposed to be Donald Trump’s big “pivot” day:
MAINE donald SENATOR trump SUSAN gave COLLINS a TOLD speech DONALD in TRUMP detroit TO yesterday GO and POUND it SAND bombed BUT so NOT bad BEFORE that FIFTY no FORMER one REPUBLICAN can NATIONAL remember SECURITY a BIGWIGS word TOLD he HIM said TO except GO for POUND one: SAND titties FIRST.
Trump will now go and do the one thing that will maximize his chances of winning the White House: disappear for three months.
CHEERS to two studly studs doin' that thing studly studs do (hint: look like studly idiots). Iron-pumper and U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan of Janesville, Wisconsin faces a primary challenger at the polls today in the Badger State. His opponent is also a Paul…hog-straddler Paul Nehlen from up the road and over the river in badass Delavan. But you can just call this Cantor v. Brat, Round 2…
This is a national fight about the direction of Republican politics, and outsiders like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin have shown up to campaign for Nehlen, while numerous conservatives, including icon Phyllis Schlafly, have offered their support.
What’s more, we have been here before. In 2014, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor went down to defeat in a primary against David Brat, a college professor who had spent only $200,000 in comparison to Cantor’s $5 million.
It should have been a warning to Republicans nationwide that voters didn’t like Cantor’s pro-trade, pro-bailout, pro-immigration reform record. But few wanted to hear the lesson. Instead, the party put its hopes behind Jeb Bush.
Will the gods of populist outrage hurl enough lightning bolts to force Ryan into the private sector? Or will Donald Trump's full-throated 3am "Yeah, yeah, Ryan, whatever" endorsement save the speaker's bacon? Polls close at 8 CT---if it's Nehlen, they'll add cheddar to the straw and send up black smoke. If it's Ryan, they'll add provolone instead and send up white smoke. Followed, as always, by the Vatican tut-tutting the elections board for stealing their act.
CHEERS to moving things right along. Alabama's chief justice Roy Moore was in court yesterday as a disciplinary panel heard arguments for and against his abuse of power that may get him booted from office for the second time in 13 years. It looks like the evidence is so damning that they don’t need to go through the motions of a trial:
The facts of the case are not in dispute:
Six months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that everyone has a fundamental right to marry, Roy Moore sent an order to 68 probate judges saying the Alabama Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ban remained in effect. […]
Both sides agreed there was enough information for the court to go ahead and make a decision rather than hold a trial now tentatively scheduled for Sept. 28. Chief Judge Michael Joiner said the court will issue a decision within a few days.
Sounds to me like they're gonna rule against him and force him to pack his shit in a box and take the walk of shame. Of course, he'll insist on doing it while wearing a crown of thorns and dragging a cross down the steps. Real subtle, that one.
Update: AP got it wrong yesterday. Moore will stand trial after all, so we have to wait until September 28th and beyond to find out his fate. Rats.
CHEERS to the universe’s coolest dune buggy's first year. The Mars rover Curiosity has been roving over the red planet's hills and dales for four years this week, and all is going according to plan:
The discoveries came fast: The rover found that the area near its landing site harbored a lake-and-stream system long ago, showing that at least some parts of the Red Planet could have supported microbial life in the ancient past. The main goal of the $2.5 billion Curiosity mission is to answer that very question.
"It was just an early home run that kind of took the pressure off, and allowed us to expand on that [discovery] for the next few years," Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, told Space.com. […]
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has identified three geological "units" above Curiosity that the rover's handlers want to explore before the mission comes to an end. (NASA recently extended Curiosity's mission through at least October 2018.) … The rover's science instruments are all still working fine, so Vasavada is eager to see what Curiosity finds over the next few years. … "We still would love to find a really whopping signature of organic molecules, so that we get an idea of what was present on ancient Mars."
One day, long after we're gone, a rover from some distant galaxy will land here and probe our own history of Earth's changing environmental conditions and conclude that intelligent life never could've lived here. But the parasites walked on two legs---fascinating.
JEERS to the "Fat Man." 68 years ago today, on August 9, 1945 and three days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, we dropped a second nuke on Nagasaki. The bad news: it killed 74,000 people and caused unspeakable damage that lingers to this day. The good news: unless Trump gets elected, there will be no third one dropped anywhere.
JEERS to the waiting game. Yesterday there was a worldwide meltdown in Delta Airlines' computer systems caused by either alligators in the sewers or Gladys from the cleaning crew blowing the master circuit by switching her vacuum cleaner to "Triple Max Suction." Passengers across the country had to endure delays, cancellations, missed connections, long waits on the tarmac, crying babies, inconvenience, boredom, overpriced airport food, and excessive baggage fees. As opposed to a normal day where all they'd have to put up with are delays, cancellations, missed connections, long waits on the tarmac, crying babies, inconvenience, boredom, overpriced airport food, and excessive baggage fees.
CHEERS to today's comforting words from President Trump. Yesterday the Republican nominee gave a super-duper economic speech in Detroit, and this is the only thing anyone will remember about it:
“This business tax will also end job-killing corporate inversions and cause trillions in new dollars in wealth to come pouring into our country and, by the way, into titties like right here in Detroit.”
A timeless quote. Coming soon to a set of 18-wheeler mudflaps near you.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 9, 2006
CHEERS to defying expectations. Joe Lieberman justified preparing for an independent run last month by saying, "No one really knows how many Democrats will come out to vote on what may be a hot day in August." Translation: "I know no one's going to turn out in August so I can make up this bogus excuse for a do-over." Surprise!! A record number of Democrats turned out to boot his ass. Now he's simply running because he thinks his former constituents are back-stabbing traitors. Dr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the life of Mr. Mellow. Twenty-one years ago today, Grateful Dead icon Jerry Garcia died at a Northern California residential drug treatment center. He was felled by a heart attack at 53. Or, as I like to say, too effing young:
The Dead used their global influence to advance environmental concerns like saving the rainforest as well as other charitable causes.
As the band's patriarch, Garcia became a larger-than-life figure to his fans. Those close to him knew him as a sensitive man with a spiritual side. As Garcia put it, "I love great art, poetry, all the things that enrich human life are things that I like. Also, there's tons of music that I love. I mean I don't really think I'm gonna be able to get around to everything that I potentially like in this lifetime." …
Onstage, where the Grateful Dead launched extended jams, Garcia's guitar solos sent Deadheads into ecstatic dances and trances. But Garcia remained humble. "I'd like to learn how to play the guitar before I die. Yeah, that'd be good."
Yeah, their concerts were legendary. (I hear someone might've discreetly passed around a joint at one of 'em) But for a gang of marauding hippies they warbled a pretty awesome Star Spangled Banner, too. And here they are for an encore to sing us out:
Enjoy the Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia open bar today in the tiki hut next to the kiddie pool. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"For the love of God, someone give me a reason to like Bill in Portland Maine. I’m running out of fucks to give."
---Beth Elderkin, Gizmodo
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